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Lives Less Ordinary

The Hiroshima survivor who's still shouting for peace

Lives Less Ordinary

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.6814 Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2024

⏱️ 61 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Setsuko Thurlow knows what nuclear war looks like.

She was a 13-year-old schoolgirl when an atomic bomb was dropped on her home city of Hiroshima, Japan. Most of the places she knew were destroyed in an instant. Narrowly escaping death herself, Setsuko became a witness to the aftermath of atomic warfare, and the things she saw that day would compel her to spend her life fighting for nuclear disarmament.

Archive was from British Pathé

Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Jo Impey and Harry Graham Editor: Laura Thomas

Get in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

You are about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about what goes into making one.

0:06.5

I'm Sadata Sese, an assistant commissioner of podcasts for BBC Sounds.

0:11.1

I pull a lot of levers to support a diverse range of podcasts on all sorts of subjects,

0:16.0

relationships, identity, comedy, even one that mixes poetry, music and inner city life.

0:22.4

So one day I'll be helping host develop their ideas, the next fact-checking, a feature,

0:28.3

and the next looking at how a podcast connects with its audience, and maybe that's you.

0:33.6

So if you like this podcast, check out some others on BBC Sounds.

0:38.2

We had a large house, and since my father I was acting as a head of the plan,

0:44.4

all the relatives and families come together to our place for birthdays,

0:50.2

so graduation from university, wedding, funeral, everything.

0:55.7

So our place was like Grand Central Station, you know, a lot of people coming and going.

1:05.5

When Setsko Thurlow remembers her child at in 1940s Japan, her eyes twinkle, hers was a wealthy family, her mother liked to boast that their ancestors were high-status, samurai class warriors.

1:23.6

But that house was wiped from the map, along with many others in the city, and tens of thousands of people who lived there one summer afternoon in 1945.

1:37.0

The place was Hiroshima, and the precise moment it was flattened by a nuclear bomb, August 6th, at 8.16 a.m.

1:49.5

At that moment, I did see the flesh.

1:55.2

The flesh.

1:57.0

I didn't have a moment to wonder what it was because immediately my body was up in the air.

2:05.7

My body was floating up in the air.

2:10.7

This is the Lives Less Ordinary podcast from the BBC World Service.

2:15.5

I'm Joe Fidgen.

2:17.0

Setsko was 13 when the world changed. She's now 92

2:22.2

and has spent most of her life campaigning against the use of nuclear weapons. There is no

...

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